When is a surface foam-phobic or foam-philic?

TL;DR

This paper models the equilibrium shapes of soap film borders on substrates, identifying conditions under which substrates are foam-philic or foam-phobic based on wettability and gravity effects, validated by experiments and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework integrating the Young-Laplace equation with gravity to determine foam-philic and foam-phobic substrate conditions.

Findings

Plateau borders only exist within specific (θ_c, Bo) domains.

Top Plateau border width is limited by bottom border for given parameters.

Steady-state top Plateau borders do not form for contact angles above 90°.

Abstract

By integrating the Young-Laplace equation, including the effects of gravity, we have calculated the equilibrium shape of the two-dimensional Plateau borders along which a vertical soap film contacts two flat, horizontal solid substrates of given wettability. We show that the Plateau borders, where most of a foam's liquid resides, can only exist if the values of the Bond number ${\rm Bo}$ and of the liquid contact angle $\theta_c$ lie within certain domains in $(\theta_c,{\rm Bo})$ space: under these conditions the substrate is foam-philic. For values outside these domains, the substrate cannot support a soap film and is foam-phobic. In other words, on a substrate of a given wettability, only Plateau borders of a certain range of sizes can form. For given $(\theta_c,{\rm Bo})$, the top Plateau border can never have greater width or cross-sectional area than the bottom one. Moreover, the top Plateau border cannot exist in a steady state for contact angles above 90$^\circ$. Our conclusions are validated by comparison with both experimental and numerical (Surface Evolver) data. We conjecture that these results will hold, with slight modifications, for non-planar soap films and bubbles. Our results are also relevant to the motion of bubbles and foams in channels, where the friction force of the substrate on the Plateau borders plays an important role.